


Highly Classified

by verity



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Genderswap, Mpreg, anti-fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-19
Updated: 2011-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-15 18:38:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You'll feel better in no time. Trust me," Joanna tells him. "I'm a doctor."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Highly Classified

**Author's Note:**

> This is all Snick's fault. <3

"You can't go to work, I'm _dying_ ," Sherlock moans into the crook of his elbow. He's sprawled on the sofa, one arm thrown over his face, the other dangling down to the floor.

Sighing, Joanna rubs the bridge of her nose. "I can't sit around looking after you all day because you've got the flu, Sherlock. Get some sleep. Eat some saltines. You'll feel better in no time. Trust me," Joanna tells him. "I'm a doctor."

\- - - - -

"I can't make any sense of this," she says, two months later, when Sherlock is _still_ sick, moaning, and refusing to get off the sofa. More worryingly, he hasn't taken any cases since the rather artistic triple homicide in Islington four weeks ago. At first, Joanna thought he might be avoiding Anderson, but this seems a little extreme for professional embarrassment.

Sherlock blinks up at her; her hand is still resting against his damp brow. "I have a theory. Parthenogenesis."

"You don't seem to have a fever." Joanna observes.

"You're not _listening_ to me." His brows lower ominously.

"Yes, I am, actually. Sherlock, unless there's something you've been very successfully concealing from me for the last year, you're a man. Biologically speaking. So, aside from the fact that asexual reproduction in humans is impossible, it's... still impossible."

With a huff, Sherlock turns away from her and curls in on himself.

\- - - - -

"Highly classified." Mycroft smiles, and leans back against his desk. "But I can confirm for you that my brother is expecting a child."

Joanna, seated before him, looks up wide-eyed. "Was this… some kind of experiment?" And why Sherlock? Of all the people Joanna knows, Sherlock is the last she'd pick as a control for male motherhood. Well, maybe behind Moriarty or the serial strangler they'd spent two weeks casing before Sherlock had fallen... ill. (This whole business is so much easier to deal with if she frames it as some kind of pathology.)

"As I said, I can't share any details. A specialist will be overseeing his antenatal care."

\- - - - -

Though she feels guilty about it, Joanna can't help but be relieved that she doesn't have the experience or the security clearance to oversee Sherlock's medical treatment. It's not that she's bothered by the impossibility of Sherlock's pregnancy (though she is), or that she's annoyed by having a patient waiting for her every night when she comes home from work (though she is), or even that she's angry that no one bothered to consult Sherlock about any of this (though she is). Joanna spent ten years in the military: she's not fussed about the male body, either.

Sherlock won't talk about the mysterious pregnancy – not how it came about, nor why he's still carrying it, nor what the end result will be – though surely he must know, Mycroft couldn't keep that secret from him. Joanna finds herself unable to think of the thing growing inside Sherlock as a child. Of course, she doesn't know that it _is_ one, and that's far more unpleasant to ruminate about.

As the constant nausea seems to have passed, Sherlock's started taking cases again, though not as many, and he lets Joanna do more and more of the leg work. She doesn't feel like she's just following him around anymore – he needs her, she's useful, he can't chase criminals across London's rooftops right now. After she came back from Afghanistan, running after him was what made her feel alive, but this is more than that – she feels like a soldier again, like _Joanna_ , like herself.

When they get back to the flat, though, there's no inappropriate crime-scene related laughter or ordering in Chinese. Sherlock disappears into his room and Joanna paces around the living room, restless, until she can find something to occupy herself.

Sometimes she comes home to find Sherlock asleep on the sofa. She can't shake the feeling that she's intruding.

She wishes she felt guiltier about being able to run ahead.

\- - - - -

"I don't think I can," Sherlock mutters under his breath. He's sitting on the steps of a fire escape somewhere in the West End, around the building's third floor. As the main suspect's flat is on the fifth, Joanna surmises that breaking and entering is probably off the menu for the evening.

"Well, you have to go up or down." Sherlock buries his head in his hands. "I can help you down," she offers.

Joanna gets Sherlock off the fire escape herself, in the end, half-supporting, half-carrying him. He's surprisingly cooperative, which rather terrifies her. The cab on the way home is full of tense silence. Thankfully, Sherlock manages the seventeen stairs up to 221B on his own.

"Sherlock," Joanna says once Mrs. Hudson is on the other side of their door.

Sherlock ignores her, and starts toward his room.

"Sherlock," she says again, and grabs him by the wrist. He flinches and tries to pull out of her grasp, but she doesn't let go. "What's going on? You have to tell me. I can't help if I don't know."

" _No one_ knows," he spits at her. "Do you think I like having some kind of parasite growing inside me? Or that I wouldn't have gotten rid of it if I could?"

"I thought– Mycroft– "

Sherlock laughs, and it's not a very nice laugh. "As if _he_ has any understanding of human reproductive systems."

Gently, Joanna steers him over to the sofa. She's getting the feeling that she might require some fortification for this conversation. "I'll just put on the kettle."

Sherlock doesn't protest.

When she comes back from the kitchen, Joanna scoots the coffee table out of the way and kneels down in front of Sherlock. Her leg hardly pains her. She takes his hands and looks up at him. "Do you need to break something? Explode something? I can try to find something… non-toxic. To explode."

Instead of answering her, Sherlock moves her hands. To his stomach. It feels like any belly full of six months of baby, which is to say, round. Outside of her work as a doctor, Joanna hasn't touched many of them. She doesn't quite know what to do with her hands, so she pulls them back after a moment.

"It _is_ a fetus?" she asks.

"As far as can be determined."

"What are you going to do with it?"

Sherlock gives her a look she can't quite decipher. "I don't know," he says, as the kettle begins to whistle.

\- - - - -

"Moriarty?" she asks the next morning.

Sherlock shakes his head. "Not clever enough. Lacks his touch."

His tone sounds almost wistful.


End file.
